Psychology book recommendations
Like books? We do too! Here’s a list of some of our favorite psychology-related reads that may really pique your interest if you’re into the Enneagram and human behavior. One recommendation per type — but don't let that stop you, because we shamelessly read them all!
Type 1
Love’s Executioner, Irvin D. Yalom
Sit in the therapy chair with Yalom as 10 real patients wrestle with love, fear, and the fact that life ends. He shows that therapy is often risky conversation rather than pure technique, sometimes pushing clients away, and other times manifesting incredible breakthroughs.
Type 2
Plays Well with Others, Eric Barker
Popular blogger Eric Barker explains how small, sincere shifts in how you listen and signal warmth can boost your interpersonal relationships. Plays Well with Others is loaded with stories, fun facts, experiments, and takeaways that you can start implementing today.
Type 3
Bargaining for Advantage, G. Richard Shell
Use Bargaining for Advantage to stop making negotiation feel like a grim contest and start looking like a reasonable conversation. Snell gives you ways to prepare, read motives, and bargain hard without burning any bridges.
Type 4
Strangers to Ourselves, Rachel Aviv
Several people’s stories (including the author herself) about living with psychiatric diagnoses. It shows how labels shape treatment plans, family decisions, and self-identity in different cultures, and argues we should treat diagnoses as working stories instead of fixed destinies.
Type 5
The Master and His Emissary, Iain McGilchrist
The right and left hemispheres have distinct styles of attention — and Western culture has drifted toward the left’s narrow, decontextualized style. McGilchrist traces that shift through neuroscience, art, philosophy, and politics and explains why a rebalancing would matter.
Type 6
Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts, Sally M. Winston & Martin N. Seif
If your mind throws you alarming thoughts, this book feels like a steady hand. It teaches you to stop wrestling, reduce compulsions, and build a calmer response. Clear steps delivered with unusual compassion.
Type 7
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks
Fascinating (and occasionally heavy) case studies of patients with neurological disorders such as agnosia, amnesia, aphasia, Tourette’s, and autism. Sacks explains what’s happening in the brain, how it appears in daily life, and how it affects one’s sense of self.
Type 8
Good Morning Monster, Catherine Gildiner
Five clients face devastating pasts and inch toward normal joy. Gildiner tells their journeys with heart-wrenching storytelling but a clinician’s sharp clarity, so each “against the odds” breakthrough inspires real hope.
Type 9
Tiny Beautiful Things, Cheryl Strayed
Letters arrive from people in relationship and life crises; columnist Cheryl Strayed answers with fierce tenderness and hard-won wisdom. Each reply reads like a tiny memoir and leaves you wiser and braver about your own mess.
Happy reading!